The 5 Levels of Leadership: Proven Steps to Maximize Your Potential by John C. Maxwell Read Free Book Online Page B

opportunities for advancement in that organization. They may move laterally, but they rarely move up.
    If you have been a positional leader, you can change, and this book will help you. However, you need to recognize that the longer you haverelied on your position, the more difficult it will be for you to change others’ perception about your leadership style. You may even need to change positions in order to restart the process of developing influence with others.
7. Turnover Is High for Positional Leaders
    When people rely on their positions for leadership, the result is almost always high turnover. One of the chapters in my book
Leadership Gold
is titled, “People Quit People, Not Companies.” In it I explain how people often take a job because they want to be part of a particular company, but when they quit it’s almost always because they want to get away from particular people. Good leaders leave an organization when they have to follow bad leaders. Good workers leave an organization when the work environment is poor. Interview a person who has left and the odds are high that they did not leave their job. They left the people they had to work with. 5
    People quit people, not companies.
    Every company has turnover. It is inevitable. The question every leader must ask is, “Who is leaving?” Are the 8s, 9s, and 10s leaving? Or the 1s, 2s, and 3s? If 8s are leaving and 3s are coming in, there’s trouble ahead. Organizations with Level 1 leadership tend to lose their best people and attract average or below-average people. The more Level 1 leaders an organization has, the more the door swings out with high-level people and in with low-level ones.
    About a year ago, my friend Linda Sasser wrote me a note in which she talked about the dynamics that occur when higher-level employees find themselves working for a positional leader. She says that these people often become Lost Leaders. Here’s what Linda wrote:
    It seems that a Level l leader also finds it difficult to have Level 3 employees. Good mid-level leaders make incompetent leaders uncomfortable! So while it is true that employees will leave a weak Level 1 leader, it is also true that Level 1 leaders will remove Level 3 followers. Seeing this happen before my eyes has fascinated me and of course saddened me.
    So why do I call them lost leaders? They are great up-and-comers who have been called to lead because of talent yet are suppressed or driven away by Level 1 bosses, therefore leaving them unemployed and lost amongst all the displaced workers.
    What a waste of time and talent. Every time a productive worker or potential leader is driven away by a positional leader, the organization suffers. It’s a fact that an organization will not function on a level higher than its leader. It just doesn’t happen. If a Level 1 leader is in charge, the organization will eventually be a Level 1 organization. If the leader is on Level 4, then the organization will never get to Level 5—unless the leader grows to that level.
8. Positional Leaders Receive People’s Least, Not Their Best
    Can you name one organization that gets the least from its people and is the best at what it does? Can you name one coach who gets the least from team members and has won a championship? Can you name one teacher who gets the least from students yet ranks highest among peers? Can you name one country that gets the least from its citizens and is respected by the world? Can you name one marriage that gets the least from each spouse that yields a great long-term relationship? No, I bet you can’t. Why? Because it is impossible to be successful with people who give the least.
    People who rely on their positions and titles are the weakest of allleaders. They give their least. They expect their position to do the hard work for them in leadership. As a result, their people also give their least. Some people who work for a positional leader may start out strong, ambitious, innovative, and motivated,